Birthdays typically come one to a customer, but one Vallejo baby had what amounts to a second one Wednesday with a liver transplant her parents hope will save her life.

“This is like a new birthday for her,” said 7-month-old Makayla Faith Keltz’ mother, Lauren Wilson of Vallejo. “I know it’s a new beginning for her.”

Suffering from a genetic malformation that resulted in liver failure, the baby was so yellow in the days before the transplant that she was almost green, Wilson said. Doctors at Stanford’s Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital, where the procedure was done, told the parents that without a transplant, Makayla had only a couple of months to live.

Baby Makayla, whose story was featured in the Valllejo Times-Herald in early January, is still not out of the woods. But her prospects have significantly improved, Wilson said. The next 72 hours will tell, she said.

“We got a call (Tuesday) that they’d found a liver, and they tested it, and it was perfect,” Wilson said. “I walked her down to surgery at 3 a.m. and the surgery started at 5 a.m. It was done by 1:30 this afternoon.”

Makayla’s grandfather, Ralph Giannini of Vallejo, said he’s overjoyed that the life-saving procedure was done.

“She came through it with flying colors,” Giannini said. “The surgery went perfectly and the liver is a perfect fit.”

A certified nursing assistant on an extended leave of absence from her job, Wilson said she’s acutely aware that her daughter’s life was saved only with the loss of someone’s else’s child. Her husband, Richard Keltz, works occasional odd jobs and cares for the couple’s three other young children, who range in age from 2 to 5.

“All they said was that (the liver) was from four states away — a four-hour flight — and that it was from a 2-year-old who was perfectly healthy but who suffered a tragic accident and his parents decided to donate his liver,” she said. “They tested it and it was a perfect match for Makayla.”

Wilson, 25, said she plans to write the donor’s parents through the transplant organization and if, a year from now, both sets of parents want to meet, that can be arranged.

“I’m so grateful that they made what had to be the hardest decision of their lives,” she said. “Their decision saved my child’s life, but, also, their child continues living in a way, through mine.”

The medical insurance issues with which Makayla’s family was struggling when her story was first reported, aren’t entirely resolved, but take a back seat to the baby’s recovery, Wilson said.

“The medical bill, without the transplant or the special food, is $3.2 million,” she said. “But, I’m so relieved. This has been the hardest four months of my life. God has gotten us this far, and I know he won’t turn his back on us now. Now we focus on getting her well.”

Anyone wishing to contribute to Makayla’s health care fund can call her mother at (707) 294-3177.